


Poison & Wine

by Quanna



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Babyfic (kind of), Other, Telepathy, Time Lord Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-19 02:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17592911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quanna/pseuds/Quanna
Summary: Short not-quite-babyfics exploring The Doctor, The Master, and their shared history.





	1. Three & Delgrado Master

**Author's Note:**

> Been cleaning out my drafts folder, and found these two lurking. They were meant to be part of a series of 5 “not quite babyfics”, but then life happened and here we are three years later. Enjoy? 
> 
> (For this chapter no trigger warnings I can think of.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU in which the Doctor was Kate’s eccentric weird uncle growing up you cannot change my mind.

“Now Miss Lethbridge-Stewart”, the Doctor says, pushing opening the door to his lab, “you’re not to touch anything in here, okay?”  
The little girl on his arm babbles back at him excitedly, shoving her fist into her mouth.  
“Splendid. I’m sure we’ll get along famously.” 

Inside, the Doctor clears some space on the table next to the least fragile chemistry set, and gently sets Kate down. She wobbles a bit and he keeps a hand at her back just in case she flops over, but she settles and stays upright.  
“Impressive,” he grants her. She coos triumphantly. “Indeed. Balance is an often underestimated skill.”  
She continues enthusiastically biting her own digits. He figures it’ll keep her occupied for a few minutes and goes in search of something non-flammable to entertain a small human with (and stop a big Time Lord from regenerating out of sheer boredom). He doesn’t need his excellently attuned time senses to know whatever the Brigadier is doing, it is likely going to take at least three times as long as he seemed to think it would. He, for want of a functional space-time machine, will be spending an afternoon with Lethbridge-Stewart offspring he did not know existed until it was frantically shoved into his arms a moment ago.  
Just as he’s found a bag full of food-grade Auton parts, something crashes to the floor at the other end of the room. It is followed by a muffled curse, coughing, and an excited baby human’s cry.  
He spins round but the girl is fine, looking at him with big round eyes and a toothless smile, chubby finger pointing to his TARDIS in the corner. He is about to caution her not to pick fights she cannot win with sentient Time Ships, when he sees a flash of black slip behind his Ship. 

The Doctor rolls his eyes, sets down the bag of Auton parts, and goes to investigate. He picks his way around stray bits of shattered glass and blobs of Yates’ homemade strawberry jam, silently mourning the destruction of the last of his leftover christmas stash.  
More coughing, a shuffle, and he feels something prodding into his back as he pokes his head around the back of the TARDIS. 

“My dear Doctor. It seems I have finally outsmarted you,” the Master croons at his ear. “Now stop making a fool of yourself and turn round so we can have a proper chat.”  
The Doctor sighs, holds up his hands, and turns round.  
“What do you want old chap? Missed me so much you’ve come to pay me a visit?”  
Something passes through the Master's eyes, colouring his cheeks slightly.  
“Certainly not,” his greatest enemy manages.  
The Doctor raises an eyebrow just the right length to set the Master off on one of his tirades.  
“I am here to take all your time gadgets and then-” he pauses, inhaling deeply for dramatic effect, “I will take over this pitiful little planet of yours.”  
The Doctor raises his other eyebrow.  
“I suggest you cooperate, or the humans will suffer.”  
“Will they now.”  
The Master nods curtly, prodding the Doctor with the gun. “Time gadgets, if you please.”  
The Doctor flexes his fingers, squares his shoulders, and knocks the Master out with a strategic blow to the neck. 

*

Kate is blowing little spit bubbles onto her third Auton toe, prattling away happily. The Doctor sits on a chair in front of her with a book, his roots still hurting from when he tried teaching her the concept of sharing earlier. He’s not exactly big on romance novels, but the canteen’s book exchange is all he has to go on until the TARDIS forgives him for the accidental fire in her console room last week. Really it was all the Brigadier’s fault, but in a flash of real sentient timeship maturity she’s decided to blame him, again.  
The TARDIS growls unhappily from the corner, and he placatingly bats a hand in her direction, not wanting to incur any more charges. “It’s quite alright, old girl. I accept my punishment.”  
She growls again, louder this time, accompanied by a mental whiff of annoyance in his direction. Kate squeals in excitement, chubby finger pointing in the direction of the blue box.  
The Doctor puts his book down and eyes Kate sternly. “I’m afraid she is very much overreacting. She’s quite fond of the occasional dramatics.” He is not about to have both of them gang up on him, and holds Kate’s gaze a little longer. She smiles brightly in response, revealing all three of her teeth. The auton toe lands on the table with a thud as her fingers wag through the air, relaying a very important message.  
The Doctor turns in his chair, finally understanding. The Master blinks up innocently from his position on the floor, decidedly further away from where the Doctor tied him up. He is trying, and failing, to hide the splinter of wood in his hands, bits of frayed rope at his feet. 

“I see you have acquired a pet,” the Master grumbles as he gets to his feet, throwing the splinter over his shoulder. “Human, I take it?”  
The Doctor merely turns the page of his book. This is going to be one long afternoon. The Master strolls up to the table, hands clasped behind his back. Kate has picked up another bit of Auton, not remotely bothered by the short, strange man trying unsuccessfully to look imposing. The Doctor clears his throat.  
“Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, meet the Master. Master, meet Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.”  
“Charmed, I'm sure,” the Master mutters, wincing as Kate enthusiastically chews on a plastic finger. He digs in his pockets, clearly annoyed.  
“Don’t bother, I’ve confiscated all your weapons,” the Doctor says casually over his book.  
“I sincerely doubt that.”  
“And your smoke bombs.”  
The Master huffs.  
“And whatever else you’ve floating around in there. A deep clean once a century is not a bad idea, you know.”  
The Master pats his pockets one last time, sighs loudly, and crosses his arms in defeat.  
“You’re sulking,” the Doctor observes.  
“It is called thinking, my dear. You should try it sometime,” the Master answers with a perfectly fake smile.  
The Doctor shrugs. “No highly destructive time gadgets for you, in any case.”  
The Master pretends not to hear, theatrically pacing the room a few times. Eventually he seems to come to the conclusion that there really are no time gadgets in his immediate future, and redirects his attention to the Doctor’s laboratory. He gathers a couple of disassembled bits of alien tech and flops into an empty chair at the table.  
“Much as I love our little chats, I think I am going to construct a rudimentary transporter to get me out of here, if it’s all the same to you.”  
“As long as you keep it explosive free,” the Doctor says with an indicative nod to Kate.  
“Only legal adults are to be directly threatened with immediate termination of life,” the Master sighs. “I do remember some of our old house rules.”  
“Good. You made most of them.”  
The Master gives the Doctor a long sideways look, then sets to tinkering with the various bits and pieces in front of him. 

 

He lasts all of seventeen minutes before he drops it all on the table in front of him, groaning in frustration. The Doctor turns another page, very secretly extremely glad for the distraction. 

The Master scratches at his goatee, then picks up a plastic finger and wags it in front of Kate’s face. She ignores him.  
“Do they leak slime at every age, or just the first decade?” The Master sighs. “I don’t understand why you bother with them. So dull.” He thumps the table with the plastic finger for emphasis on the last two words. 

The Doctor puts down the book and looks at his friend. Enemy. Whatever.  
“You’ve crossed the wires wrongly on the last two parts. That’s why it isn’t working.” He reaches across and grabs the pieces of tech, rearranging them in the middle of the table. Kate and the Master follow the movement of his fingers as he pulls out two wires and puts them back in reverse order. A small light blinks from orange to green, the pieces vibrate a little, and finally let out a satisfyingly loud beep.  
“There you go,” the Doctor says, handing the now working device back to the Master. “Basic quantum mechanics. One of the few lectures I did not skip.” 

The Master feels colour rise in his cheeks. He gets up, inspecting the pieces in his hand. “It does indeed appear to be in working order.” 

Kate looks from one Time Lord to the other, and squeals with laughter. She babbles excitedly, chubby hands pointing back and forth between them. 

“What did she say?” The Master asks incredulously, trying furiously not to blush. He has the distinct feeling he’s being made fun of by a human toddler, but the Doctor’s damned TARDIS doesn’t like him enough to translate. 

The Doctor is laughing loudly, and, to the Master’s great disdain, not without a hint of righteousness. 

“She said,” the Doctor begins, the enjoyment clear in his voice, “that you’re a useless husband.” He pauses for breath. “And that I should find another one.” He coos something at Kate, clarifying: “she isn’t wrong.” And with that, he dissolves into a fit of giggles.

The Master punches the transmat sequence into the machine and disappears, vowing to wipe the memory of the entirety of UNIT for the day.


	2. Twelve & Missy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one is A Lot, i’m sorry. Set somewhere after The Eaters of Light.
> 
> Trigger warnings for ptsd, flashbacks, some mild psychological fuckery, unhealthy/abusive relationships.

She finds them in the observatory, their figure dwarfed against the vast expanse of space overhead. They sit in the light of the constellations around them, fingers fluttering rapidly through the air near their eyes. Guitar in their lap, they sit on the floor, back against a perfectly sensible couch. Typical. The room is a window to the universe, lit only by the endless scattering of stars overhead. It is meant as a tactical vantage point, but the owner of this particular ship being what they are, it serves as a recreation space instead. 

She reaches out, nudging them mentally to alert them to her presence. They haven’t locked her back up after their last close call, but neither have they extended an invitation to stay. Instead, she’s wandered the Tardis’s corridors, resisted stealing any books from the library, and not hotwired any trapdoors. The last fight where either of them got more than their ego bruised was at least a few decades ago now. Blink of an eye to a Time Lord of course, but baby steps and all that. 

And yet, she isn’t entirely sure where they stand right this moment. Her hands still shake from where they held them minutes ago, her thoughts a matching jumble in her head. Emotional like a disgusting human-

She berates herself for the thought. Primitive human. Much better. She takes a breath, straightens her jacket and pulls her shoulders back. The Doctor sits unchanged under a starlit sky, oblivious to the feelings she’s unsuccessfully trying to tune out behind them. Not for the first time, she wonders if they can communicate at all without tactile aids. They’ve always been on the ‘useless’ end of the telepath scale (she resides at the top of course), but this one is different: all spiky edges, their thoughts bleeding like watercolours on paper. 

Practically on queue, a tickle of embarrassment curls at the back of her mind, and she smiles despite herself. Their fingers flare up into the air in response, the pattern growing ever more rapid and intricate. How strongly some of their oldest traits and habits have come out this time round, like a human-made deck of cards: reshuffled so many times they’ve exhausted all possibilities and ended up at the start. Continuous movement she can trace right back to a young child coated in ochre dust, eyes fixed on the galaxy above. Beautiful hands dancing through starlight a million years ago, sealing their pact: they would see them all, every single star. It’s the first memory returned to her after regeneration, every time. The Doctor talks of atonement but she doubts they understand the meaning of the word. 

She sits down on the sofa next to them, legs almost touching their side. Distracts herself by watching them work through whatever it is that demands all their attention. Snippets of their emotion provide plenty of diversion for at least half of her brain, and the other half is easily entertained by making a list of all flammable items in the room. Purely hypothetical at this, but an engaging thought experiment. 

Eventually the Doctor’s hands still, and they shift on the floor to turn to her, eyes fixing on a point just above her shoulder. They clear their throat, frown, and hand her a mug of something warm from a tray next to them. She pauses her mental inventory of console room items in order of explosiveness. Sniffs the drink. Tea, too much sugar, no milk. She takes a sip anyway. The sugar slows her down enough to make her hands stop shaking. The Doctor copies her movements, a veritable mountain of sugar visible in their mug. The two of them sip their drinks in almost amicable silence. Even the TARDIS seems to have acquiesced somewhat to her presence; the ship hums rhythmically with the dim light coming from the spectacle overhead. The Doctor holds up a plate of biscuits and she grabs a few, her mind wandering to the edges of their telepathic bond as she chews. Reading them is a little bit like listening to something through an old machine: there’s a certain fondness attributed to the act, even if a lot of the broadcast is lost in static.  
A hand flutters up and presses against her fingers for a moment, and with it a sense of warmth flares through the white noise, settling at the back of her mind. It feels familiar in a way nobody else in the universe will ever be able to understand. The thought pushes a small smile on her lips. Whatever else the two of them were, are, or will be; whoever else crosses their paths, this bond will outlive them all. Sometimes it almost seems worth a millennium of mind numbing boredom. 

The Doctor drops their hand to their side, their mental imprint fading back into its usual blur. She puts her empty mug down on the tray as the Doctor digs into their pockets; pulling out a small drawstring purse. They hand it to her silently, then grab their guitar and begin tuning it. She turns the little cloth bag over in her hands, but the outside gives no indication as to its content.  
“I’m not a pet,” she sneers, more to see if they’ll rise to the bait. “You can’t just reward certain acts with treats-”  
“I know,” they say calmly, not biting. “But you should have it back all the same.” They play a few experimental notes, adjust a tuning peg, and strum a chord. 

Upon closer inspection, the sofa looks to be perfectly Time Lady sized, and she stretches out theatrically to test her theory. Satisfied, her curiosity gets the better of her and she empties the pouch out into her hand. 

And stills when she sees what they have just given her. The pin on the back has been replaced and its front is a little chipped, but it is unmistakably the same brooch.  
“Where in Rassilon’s name did you find this?”  
They grin at the old joke of her near-blasphemy and shrug. “In the rubble. Somewhere. Can’t remember.”  
She’s absolutely certain they’re lying, but she’s hardly one to judge. She squeezes the brooch in her hand, then fastens it carefully on her dress. The Doctor’s strumming has morphed into a melody, their delicate fingers dancing over the fretboard. She watches them play for a moment, a question burning brighter in her mind until she sits up so forcefully it startles them into silence. 

“That picture you have, on your desk. Is that what she looked like, when you left her on Earth?”  
They seem confused at first, but their eyes darken as they realise where this conversation is heading. They put the guitar aside and start to get up, but she grabs their arm. Not forcefully, and certainly not with the intent to hurt, but they stiffen all the same.  
“Missy-”  
She slides her hand down until it is curled around their wrist, fingers pressing into their pulse points. They inhale sharply and the telepathic bond flares up again, this time wrought with a deep sense of unease coming from them. But she needs to know, and so she closes her eyes against it and whisperthinks a very ancient name to them in all its Gallifreyan glory. The syllables feel rusty on her tongue and even rustier in her mind, and suddenly she isn’t sure they still remember how to vocalise, let alone communicate.  
A second ticks by, and then another. She releases her grip on them and steps back, eyes directed firmly at the floor. This was a mistake, one of those big ones they’re going to hold a grudge over for some time to come. She’s certainly got a few very lonely Vault decades ahead of herself now, fantastic. 

The Doctor shakes themself, runs a hand over their face, and exhales a long, deep breath.  
“Her name is Susan now,” they say quietly into the space between them.  
Of course, gone native like her grandparent. She looks up, sees their red rimmed eyes and feels the tiniest slither of guilt settle in her stomach.  
“You mean you never went to check?” they ask. “Not even once in all this time?”  
She thought about it, in the beginning. Did very little else, for a time. Sometimes she even thinks it’s what really drove her mad, all that thinking, in those early days.  
“I didn’t think she’d recognise me,” she mutters. “She was so young when you left, and I was afraid-” A memory hurls itself to the forefront of her mind and the rest of the sentence is stifled in her throat. The image of their daughter in her head is clearer than it’s been in a long, long time. “Afraid she’d remind me too much of someone else,” she finishes, fingers against the brooch on her collar. The Doctor seems to understand, because their eyes are glossy.  
“She never asked about-” they pause, look away. “never talked about her parents. I never knew if she even remembered them.”  
Another memory; drenched in blood and betrayal. She swallows, her throat raw.  
The Doctor takes her hand again, draws circles on her skin with their thumb. It’s unbearable.  
“I tried to forget them too,” they say, voice barely audible. “For a while, after we left Gallifrey. But Susan had the same eyes as her.”

She drops his hand like she’s been stung, and curls into herself onto the couch, memories she doesn’t want to relive bubbling up to the surface. She slams up her mental shields, shutting out the Doctor. Her focus turns entirely on her list of flammable items, moving from observatory to the console room, to the library, swimming pool, and the nearest kitchen. Halfway through the third floor of the library she notices the Doctor has started playing again, and by the time she’s finished with her inventory of the kitchen cupboards they’re singing along softly to an Earth song. She falls back against the sofa, wiping fresh tears from her eyes. Listens to their music and looks up to the endless scattering of stars against the smoke-stained indigo of the cosmos. She glances at them and is met with a blinding smile and excited eyes, full of a promise made centuries ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon what canon


End file.
